Improving UAV Reliability

The UAV/UAS has become a staple of the mission options available to the Department of Defense, with its roles and capabilities increasing along with utilization. However, this increase in utilization has been accompanied by significantly higher failure rates when compared to conventional airframes. The general aviation mishap rate is about 1 per 100,000 flight hours, while military UAV systems have experienced failure rates 2 orders of magnitude higher, nearly 1 per 1000 flight hours [1]. By another metric, some UAV systems have a failure rate of 25% [7)]